The Continental Monthly, Vol I, Issue I, January 1862, page 109 by Various Authors
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lutinations.' But Darby and Joan in the chimney-corner are not types of mankind at large.
'Right ethics are central, and go from the soul outward. Gift is contrary to the law of the universe. Serving others is serving myself. I must absolve me to myself.' And what is myself? Let Fichte answer. 'I affirm that in what we call the knowledge or the contemplation of things, it is always ourselves that we know or contemplate: in every sentiment of consciousness it is only modifications of ourselves that we feel.' And again: 'The universe lives. From it arises a marvelous harmony that resounds deliciously in the very depths of my heart. I live in all that surrounds me. I recognize myself in every manifestation of Nature, in the various forms of the beings about me, as a sunbeam that sparkles in the million dew-drops that reflect it.... Within me Nature is flesh, nerves, muscles; without, turf, plant, animal.'
Thus the semi-poetical Pantheism of the Bhagvat-Gita is reproduced, beautiful, dreamy and mythical, but without the shadow of an addition. Emerson presents to us the primeval faith in its imposing majesty and terrible unity, but omits to mention its final winding up in the sacred Maya or Illusion of the Hindoos. Though his early essays are brilliant with many noble thoughts, the principles he advocates in them are thoroughly unprogressive and unpractical. Plato is to him the 'exhaustive generalizer,' beyond whom it is folly to aspire, and by whose stature he measures the nations. Boëthius, Rabelais, Erasmus, Bruno, are only brisk young men translating into the vernacular wittily his good things. St. Augustine, Copernicus, Newton, Behmen, Swedenborg also 'say after him.' Emerson either addresses men whose ignorance he greatly exaggerates, or else the ideal men of some centuries hence. His mission is to the Past or the Future, not to the Present. His theories, fine and venerable, as they are as here expressed, will never save a soul, and men are still convinced that one sharp, decisive action is wo